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Aerospace Engineering Program

Faculty and Staff

  • Program Director

    Ph.D., Purdue University, 2007. ASME (Fellow), AIAA (Senior Member), IEEE (Senior Member), AAS (Senior Member). Research Interests: Multibody Dynamics, Rotordynamics, Spaceflight Dynamics, Intelligent Control Systems, Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) of Aerospace Vehicles.

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    Ph.D., Purdue University, 1989. AIAA (Associate Fellow). NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) Aviation Management Office (AMO) Chief Engineer. Lead engineering effort in preparing NASA missions involving flight assets to achieve airworthiness certification. Research Interests: aircraft composite materials, loads development, linear and nonlinear analysis, and damage tolerance.

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    Mr. Djordjevic graduated from UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Sciences with a BS (1976) an MS (1978) in Engineering, and a PhD candidacy (Equivalent to the Engineer Degree) (1982).

  • Associate Professor

    Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1996. Research Interests: Nanoscale Heat Generation and Transport, Electronics Cooling, Energy, Computational, Analytical, and Experimental Fluid Mechanics

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    Dr. Ian Johnson joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Santa Clara University as a lecturer in 2024. He graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 where his research focused on integrating an alternative propellant Pulsed Plasma Thruster into the High-Power Helicon Thruster Experiment. Ian is currently a Principal Engineer at Maxar Space Systems in Palo Alto, where he leads the propulsion team for the Psyche mission with JPL, the OSAM-1 mission with NASA Goddard, and the Lunar Artemis Gateway Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) with NASA Glenn, in addition to supporting numerous geostationary communication spacecraft for commercial customers. He has research and industry experience with both electric and chemical propulsion subsystems.

  • Professor

    Ph.D., Stanford University, 2006. ASME (Fellow), AIAA (Associate Fellow), IEEE (Senior Member). Research Interests: Collaborative Multirobot Systems, Model-Based Anomaly Management, Novel Robotic Systems, and Field Missions

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016. AIAA (Member) and Vertical Flight Society (Member). U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center, Subject Matter Expert for Flight Dynamics Modeling. Research Interest: Flight Dynamics Modeling for Fixed Wing and Rotary Wing Vehicles, High Fidelity Physics-Based Modeling, System Identification, Manned Aviation and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

  • Adjunct Lecturer

    Ph.D. from Santa Clara University in Mechanical engineering, a senior research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center with 35 years of experience. Research interests: adaptive control theory, optimal control theory, distributed control theory, aircraft flight dynamics and control, aerodynamics, and aeroelasticity.

Contact Us

Program Director: Mohammad Ayoubi

Mechanical Engineering
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053

Heafey 235

408-554-5205